


Just say yes

by ItsAshippersWorld



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: 5+1 Things, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:15:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25244497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsAshippersWorld/pseuds/ItsAshippersWorld
Summary: Five times Joe proposed to Nicky and one time Nicky proposed to Joe.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 31
Kudos: 593





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I haven’t read the comics so apologies for any inconsistencies. I have assumed that Nicky and Joe met in 1098 during the first Crusade and the dates are all based on that. Also I felt they wouldn’t have swapped to calling themselves Joe and Nicky until quite recently so have used Yusuf/Nicolo in the early chapters.

1\. 1143

Yusuf was the more openly romantic of the two of them. He didn’t feel Nicolo would disagree with this assessment of their relationship. In all aspects, Nicolo was more measured - he didn’t rush into situations without a plan, didn’t act without thinking. Although, as Yusuf smiled wryly to himself, if he had left it all up to Nicolo they probably wouldn’t be where they were today. After all, it had taken thirty five years from when they called a truce on the battlefield to the first time they had fallen into bed together. 

Yusuf almost laughed at it now, he was not a patient man and the fact he had waited thirty five years he still found extraordinary. He guessed that was the new found perspective of immortality - time became less pressing - but nevertheless he had known from the first time Nicolo sat dripping wet and half naked next to a river somewhere on the edges of the Holy land and tentatively tried to speak Arabic that Nicolo was it for him. He had waited as calmly as he could for as long as he could but eventually all the lingering stares and grazing touches had gotten too much for him and he had told Nicolo to kiss him or he was leaving. Even now, a decade later, he still felt his heart beat faster just thinking about that gut-wrenching moment when Nicolo hesitated before tentatively placing a hand on his cheek and drawing their lips together. 

He carefully laid the table of the remote hunting lodge they were currently staying in. Lodges were ideal for them when it wasn’t the hunting season as they were isolated but invariably in woodland providing a ready source of food and firewood. Nicolo was currently out sourcing the latter which had given Yusuf time to put his plan into action. He checked the rabbit on the fire on more time and ran a hand over his freshly trimmed beard. Everything was as it should be. 

****

Nicolo pushed open the door a short while later and instantly froze. “What is this?” Yusuf didn’t miss the faint sound of horror under his confusion. In darker moments he had previously wondered if Nicolo’s Catholic heritage made him hate himself for loving Yusuf to the point where their relationship tormented him and for a moment he felt the proof of this fear was standing in front of him a bundle of firewood under one arm. 

Yusuf stepped forward quickly “my love, you look as though you have seen a ghost! I know we don’t often have table cloths but surely you have not become so uncivilised as to have forgotten them entirely! Clearly what you have forgotten...” by this time he had pulled Nicolo gently into his arms “...is that today is our ten year anniversary.”

Nicolo gave Yusuf a small smile and turned his eyes up to meet his “I must confess I did not realise.” Yusuf laughed warmly and kissed him gently before leading him to the table and pushing the firewood bundle to the floor.

Yusuf fussed around Nicolo as he sat, pouring him wine and tearing him a chunk of bread from the loaf. He knew that Nicolo could sense he was nervous and that it was making Nicolo anxious. 

“Nicolo...my love, the holder of heart, I consider myself the luckiest man on this earth to have you by my side. I know that what I am about to say is not of your religion or mine but I feel our Gods had a plan for us and that they intended us to see it through together.” He took a breath not daring to look at Nicolo as he pulled a ring from his pocket and sank to one knee. “Will you marry me?”


	2. Chapter 2

2\. 1291

Nicolo was still sitting on the cliff top. Yusuf has watched the sun set behind him from his seat on their terrace. He wasn’t sure Nicolo had even shifted for the last two hours as the darkness slowly fell. He remained huddled, coiled in on himself and his pain. Three times Yusuf had thought about going over to him and three times he had thought better of it.

They had been at the market in the village down the coast when they had heard the news. The siege of Acre was over. The Christian presence in the Holy Land was all but eradicated. The chatty trader who told them hadn’t noticed Nicolo’s reaction but Yusuf had. Nearly two centuries together had made him so finely attuned to Nicolo that sometimes he wondered if they had just one shared set of emotions so keenly did he feel Nicolo’s pain at this news. He had hurried them home conscious that the longer Nicolo’s reaction built inside of him the worse it would be. Nicolo hadn’t even spoken, he had just gone straight to the top of the cliff and there he had remained as Yusuf had cooked, trained and washed. 

Yusuf had learned over the years that the key to their relationship was to know when to give each other a moment alone. The knowledge of an indefinite amount of time together alleviates a lot of pressure on one hand but can create plenty too. He still flinches slightly at the thought of the time Nicolo told him he needed some space and disappeared for a week. Yusuf shakes his head laughing at himself, how much can he love this man that even a week without him feels finely balanced against a couple of hundred years with him. 

It is this thought that spurs him out of his chair and across the scrubby grass to the cliff’s edge. He carefully wraps a blanket round Nicolo’s shoulders and sinks down next to him. Yusuf doesn’t speak yet. He knows Nicolo will say something shortly, heard it in the change of his breath when Yusuf sat down. 

“So many lives!” Nicolo exclaims. “What a fucking waste of so many lives. Good men too, the ones I knew, proud to fight for their God. And now? Now they rot in unmarked graves thousands of miles from home. What hope is there? Everything is pointless, worthless, victory so fleeting”

Yusuf placed his arm around Nicolo’s shoulders and gently pulled him in. Nicolo did not resist and Yusuf kissed his hair gently. “I know you are hurting my love and I am sorry for those you lost fighting for the folly of kings but do not forget without that war we would not have met. Now that would have been a tragedy.” Yusuf deliberately exaggerated the last sentence waving his arms with theatrical flourish. 

Nicolo released a little snuffly laugh and wiped his eyes. Yusuf’s heart swelled at the sound, relief flooding through him at the small positive noise. Nicolo readjusted himself moving further into the crook of Yusuf’s arm.

They were quiet for a moment both staring out to sea, until Nicolo spoke, in barely more than a whisper “it makes me so angry and so sad but mostly I feel guilt. Guilt that I survived, that I still survive and that I met you. Out in the middle of all that misery and blood I found my soul”

Yusuf feels the tears catching in his throat and without thinking, not considering the four years of fallout from the last time he asked, he turned to look at Nicolo and said “will you marry me?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not an expert on 16th century Italy but according to Wikipedia it seems that the Ottomans and Italian states were at war at this time so I felt it made sense that Joe would be impacted by this and have changed his name from Yusuf to Joe but that Nicky would remain Nicolo.

3\. 1504 

Joe kept a lid on his temper until they got back to their rooms. He could practically feel the steam coming out of his ears as he stormed in. Fucking Michelangelo.

Nicolo followed him in, collapsed into a chair and sighed heavily. He lifted a glass from the table next to him and downed the dregs of last night’s wine. “What is it now?”

Something in his tone, the implication that he was the one being unreasonable, made Joe even angry. He clenched his fists and whirled round, “don’t take that tone with me Nicolo, you know exactly what it is, I have had to spend another day in the company of that insufferable man watching him mentally undress you over and over, touch your arm, stroke your face and you expect me to be happy right now? He carved a statue of you Nicolo, an enormous statue from this supposedly impossible block of marble and now half of Florence thinks the most romantic gesture a man could make is to preserve his lover in stone and the other half think you should both be burned for your un-Christian behaviour and yet unless I missed something I am your lover, me not him.”

By this point Joe was gesticulating wildly, slapping his hand over his heart to emphasise his final remark. He paused for a moment and felt the fight slip from him, “and the worst of it is Nicolo is that you seem to enjoy his attentions and when he made that stupid joke earlier about marrying you if he could and you just laughed along and yet I have asked you to marry me twice and you have always said the time wasn’t right, God wouldn’t be happy...but you don’t dismiss him!” 

Nicolo pushed himself out of the chair and walked over to stand in front of Joe. He got close enough that Joe could feel his breath on his cheek, smell the stale wine he had drunk and he ached for Nicolo to touch him. 

“My love, his suggestion was so laughable that to address it directly would have given it a credibility it did not deserve. I know you have found our time in Florence hard and I know it is not all about him, do you not think I have seen the way people stare at you on the streets, hurl insults at you? It breaks my heart a little more every time but it would be worse if we were not protected and whether you like it or not my association with him protects you. So I have put up with his lingering touches, I have smiled politely at his ludicrous statements but I cannot believe that after all these years you trust me so little as to think I would leave you, to think if I were to marry someone it would be anyone but you” he looked down at their feet and leaned his forehead against Joe’s.

Joe sighed, “but you still won’t marry me will you?”


	4. Chapter 4

4\. 1842

Sebastien was sat slumped in the corner of the room. He had finally passed out from the vast quantity of alcohol he had consumed and quiet had descended as his wailing and weeping slowly ceased. Joe understood his pain in a detached sense but he couldn’t even see the faces of his parents anymore, even less remember how he felt when he realised he would never see them again hundreds of years ago. Joe had never had children. All he had was Nicolo. He briefly pondered losing Nicolo and immediately felt his heart wrench in his chest and hypothetical pain numbed him. 

He looked across at Nicolo, his beautiful Nicolo, who was sitting along the wall from Sebastien, legs out straight staring blankly at the landscape painting hung crookedly above the sleeping Frenchman. He knew that Nicolo felt Sebastien’s pain more strongly than he did, Nicolo was so sensitive to the emotions of others, so caring of those in need and at this moment Joe knew he would be mentally considering ways to alleviate Sebastien’s pain. 

“Nicolo” Joe called to him quietly, “Nicolo my love you have done all you can for him for now, let us sleep and in the morning we can begin again. Perhaps tomorrow we can get him past breakfast before he starts on the brandy”

Nicolo smiled weakly at him and eased himself stiffly off the floor coming to sit on the edge of the sofa that would be their makeshift bed tonight. He paused to take off his boots and sighed “I cannot imagine his pain. To have to bury your children as adults must be such a terrible thing and to have them curse you so as they go...he must be broken inside. I only hope we can help him.”

Joe tugged gently on Nicolo’s hip and he yielded, swinging his legs onto the sofa and shifting his body back against Joe’s until no gap remained. Joe wrapped an arm around him and breathed into his neck. This was how they had slept for centuries no matter where or what they were sleeping on. This was home for them. Nicolo had told Joe that after their first fight as a couple and Joe remembered it all these years later for its simple truth. He placed his hand over Nicolo’s heart as he said “I have complete faith in you my love. Your kindness could move mountains and while you may not have had children of your own you have known terrible pain and suffering. I remember when you learned your sister died, it was a dark time, but we have both lived long enough to know the light will shine again and it will do so for Sebastien too so long as he keeps his humanity and doesn’t pickle it completely.”

Nicolo murmured his agreement and was silent for a moment as Sebastien moved in the corner, shadows of his nightmares crossing his face. “A sister is one thing, but a wife and all three sons? I am not sure a man can recover from the loss of his love and those they created together. Even though it is not the same I do not believe I could recover from losing you, even if I lived as long as Andy, there would remain a black hole where my heart once was.”

“At this point my love, we are as good as married, in case you missed it we have been together give or take seven hundred years which is longer than most countries on earth have existed for let alone single marriages”

“We are, aren’t we? As good as I mean”

“As good as but not actually...so how about it my Genovese Prince” Joe felt Nicolo smile “will you marry me?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened to a podcast recently about Marsha P Johnson and thought she was the perfect person to include in this. I understand she used female pronouns so that is what I have done as well.

5\. 1970

Joe couldn’t believe they had just done it. All these years, so many wars but he wasn’t sure anything had been quite as exhilarating as this first pride. Admittedly for almost his entire life his sexuality had been carefully hidden, his relationship with Nicky predominantly behind closed doors. Not that he was complaining, eight hundred and seventy two years with Nicky was the best thing that could have happened to him in any version of his life. But he had never imagined all these people marching for their rights. His people. Their people. 

Nicky came over stumbling slightly a drink sloshing in each hand. “My love you have to met Marsha” Nicky gestured, spilling more drink, to the glamorous drag queen next to him “she was at Stonewall last year, she is responsible for all of this.”

“Only partially!” Marsha laughed and held out a hand which Joe theatrically kissed. Marsha laughed harder and mock swooned as she turned to Nicky “you didn’t tell me he was so smooth”

Nicky grinned as he handed Joe one of the drinks their fingers grazing. He smiled at Marsha as he said “only when he wants to be.” Joe realised how much Nicky must have drunk as he lurched forward slightly and ran his hand through the curls at the edge of Joe’s face. Joe wasn’t sure Nicky had ever touched him like this in a public setting. Admittedly a party of this kind was hardly public, given what some attendees were up to in dark corners Joe knew it wouldn’t have received a second glance as a gesture but he felt emboldened by it and put an arm around Nicky’s waist pulling him flush against his side. 

“Oh look at you two, you must have been together a thousand years. There’s so much love in your eyes it makes me jealous!”

“Honestly some days it feels like it’s been that long” Joe winked at Marsha as he gave Nicky a knowing squeeze. He waved his arm around the room “so what’s the plan next then?”

Marsha threw her arms in the air and her head back. “The sky is the limit!” She cheered slightly and bought her arms down, sipped her drink and carried on “I am not unrealistic, I know the struggle will be long and there will be many more dark days but I feel that the very fact today happened is a turning point. All I want is for us to leave the world a better safer place for all the children that come after us. That they are not marginalised or victimised for their sexuality, not seen as lesser for who they love. Hell, maybe even one day we will have proper little legal gay weddings”

Nicky leaned forward and said in a mock whisper “do you know he has asked me four times to marry him?”

“Four times and you haven’t said yes yet?! If you don’t want him I am sure someone here will take him off your hands. Look at him! Tall, dark and handsome. Eyes you could get lost in. I think you, my Italian stallion, have been a bit of a fool! Four times! I mean that’s just mad...”

Marsha shook her head and sipped her drink. Nicky leaned a little further, Joe felt himself fighting to keep Nicky upright. “It’s not like that, it’s just the time wasn’t right you know? I love him with all my heart, he was my destiny the day we met and he will be my destiny until the end of time, it’s just...” 

Nicky swayed and looked a little confused as though the alcohol had stolen his ability to speak like an orphan pickpocket. He waved his hand distractedly and leaned back into Joe.

Marsha leaned over to Joe, “I think you might have finally worn him down, perhaps it is time for lucky number five?”

If he had been asked the next day Joe wouldn’t have been able to articulate why he did it, but in the moment he felt swept up in the power of the moment, of the community and he turned his head to face Nicky, “fifth time lucky...will you marry me?”


	6. Chapter 6

+1. 2021

“Will you marry me?”

The blood roared in Joe’s ears and for a moment the world wobbled and his vision blurred. As everything came back into focus he realised it wasn’t a hallucination, it was Nicky, on one knee, holding a ring out, that was in front of him.

“What?”

Nicky chuckled softly and looked down. “I suppose that’s fair after all the times I have turned you down over the years. It is just seeing the pain Nile has gone through to leave her family behind made me realise how lucky I was to have you here with me. I mean I always knew it and maybe it was being back here in Malta again after so many years or maybe it was being captured last year. I don’t know. But I wanted this in a way that before I never felt it was necessary. We have been together for nearly nine hundred years and you still make my heart beat faster when you walk into a room, your arms at night are my sanctuary and every time I wait for you to wake up from a death I feel I could die of fear that you won’t. I remember the first time you told me you loved me, before that, the first time you kissed me and I knew in that moment that this was it. Nothing in my life even if I lived for a million years would compare and I still feel like that with every look, touch and kiss you give me...” 

He raised his eyes to meet Joe’s and Joe saw they were shining with unshed tears which he was sure mirrored his own. Joe didn’t trust himself to speak and found all he could manage was a nod as he reached for Nicky, the tears spilling from his eyes. Their lips met before Joe buried his face into the familiar nook made by Nicky’s neck and shoulder. For a minute they clung to each other as the warm Maltese air blew through the open french doors. Joe wondered if he might die from happiness and stepped back a fraction wiping his eyes, “come on then let me see the ring”

Nicky unwrapped his arms from Joe’s neck and held it out. The band had five ridges, “for the five times you asked me. For the five times I should have said yes.”


End file.
